Ranchos residents get unusual visitor

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At around dusk, Gardnerville Ranchos resident Janice Shedd was cleaning up dinner when she heard a commotion in her backyard.

She looked out and saw what she thought was her neighbors’ dog messing with her watering can.

“I went out and told it to go home, and I thought, ‘that looks like a bear,’” Shedd said of the May 30 incident. “It shocked me when I realized it was a bear.”

Shedd and her husband live on Mary Jo street on the edge of the Ranchos. Their visitor was a male yearling black bear that had scaled their 6-foot fence looking for food and water.

“We never would have thought a bear would have been in our neighborhood,” she said. “He actually was not aggressive. I think he was hungry and thirsty and a little bewildered. He was just curious and wandering around our yard.”

Shedd called 911 which dispatched Nevada Department of Wildlife authorities to her house.

Officers tranquilized the bear.

“It immediately shot up our oak tree,” she said. “They got a tarp and broke his fall with it.”

The bear was tagged and released into the Pine Nut Mountains the following day.

“I’ve seen bears before, but never that close up. It was standing on our mat outside our patio door. He walked over a 4-foot fence around our berry patch like he was walking over a pair of shoes,” Shedd said. “It was definitely an experience, but I hope it’s not repeated. It was wild to have a bear in your yard down in the Valley.”